Tucker Carlson is interviewing Putin. What’s in it for the Kremlin?

Tucker Carlson may be making his first visit to Moscow, but he has found himself being greeted as a minor celebrity.

The controversial former Fox News personality, who has been in the city over the past week to conduct an interview with President Vladimir Putin, is almost as well known in Moscow as many Russian TV personalities are. Clips from his former and current programs are frequently played on Russian TV, showing him angrily dissenting from official U.S. foreign policies, particularly regarding Russia and the war in Ukraine.

A series of street interviews conducted by the news agency Sputnik saw apparently average Russians lauding him. They described him as a truth-teller who’s run afoul of U.S. authorities because of his critical views, and a person who honestly wants to report on the real state of affairs in Russia and learn firsthand about Mr. Putin’s point of view. Russian media closely followed his movements around Moscow, including to the Bolshoi Theatre, where he viewed the ballet “Spartacus” and the sprawling new Russia Expo, which he was said to have enjoyed.

Mr. Carlson explained why he chose to sit down with the Russian leader in a brief video posted Tuesday. But if Mr. Carlson’s interview with the Russian leader (which reportedly is completed but is not yet published) happens to make an impact, it likely won’t be because it reveals anything new.

Mr. Putin’s views on almost every topic are already well known, if only because of his frenetic public schedule, which sees him almost constantly attending meetings, speechifying, and answering questions. The Kremlin website details over a dozen such meetings since the new year.

Nor would it be because other Western news organizations have refused to talk with Mr. Putin since the war began. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov acknowledged Wednesday that the president’s staff receives many requests for interviews from Western journalists. But he says the Kremlin turns them down because of the “one-sided position” of most Western news outlets. Mr. Carlson, Mr. Peskov said, was granted an interview because he has a different approach from most traditional Western media and does not take sides.

Indeed, most Western media organizations have found it difficult to continue working in Moscow amid wartime conditions. Many have left voluntarily, while others have been officially ordered to leave. One U.S. journalist, Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal, has been in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison for almost a year, facing espionage charges that his family, employers, and the U.S. government categorically deny.

But the apparent affinity between the Kremlin and Mr. Carlson probably runs much deeper than mere opportunism. During the Cold War, American outsiders such as Angela Davis were treated as heroes in the Soviet Union, where the authorities (and many ordinary people) saw them as speaking for a different kind of America, one that they might be friends with. Today’s lionizing of Mr. Carlson in the Russian media seems to reflect a similar desire to greet him as an emissary of a United States that many Russians wish existed.

“Tucker is regarded as a representative of millions of Americans who want better relations with Russia,” says Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser.

Most people have seen at least selections of Mr. Carlson’s views, which are often broadcast on Russian TV. “Russians like that he says openly that Ukraine is not a democracy, that Russia is not all bad and has some valid interests. They like that he speaks up for traditional family, Christian values. He sounds like someone we can work with,” says Mr. Markov.

Mr. Markov says a key issue in setting up the interview was that it had to be published complete and uncut, something Mr. Carlson pledged to do on his webpage and on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Other Western media aren’t being denied interviews with Putin on some principle, but just because we know they will manipulate the material, cherry-pick quotes, to make us look bad,” Mr. Markov says. “I’m quite sure that CNN could get an interview if they just promised to run the whole thing without any games.”

Some Russian political experts say the Kremlin granted Mr. Carlson the interview as an indirect way of boosting Donald Trump, as the former Fox anchor is viewed as a supporter of the former U.S. president.

But Alexei Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow, says that’s unlikely to be the Kremlin’s intent.

“Probably the Kremlin wants Americans to take a fresh look at Putin and Russia, since by now it’s clear we haven’t been defeated by sanctions or war,” he says. “As for Trump, I don’t think Putin wants to help him. We already had our experience with Trump; it wasn’t pleasant for us at all. If Putin’s interview makes Biden and his supporters uncomfortable, that’s good enough.”